Keep your interest for young Lord Cipher—a most valuable candidate. This is an awful moment—the constitution dependa on his return! Vote for Cipher!

Stout. Popkins is your man.

Evelyn [musing]. Cipher and Popkins-Popkins and Cipher. Enlightenment and Popkins-Cipher and the Constitution! I am puzzled! Stout, I am not known at Groginhole!

Stout. Your property's known there!"

Evelyn. But purity of election-independence of voters.

Stout. To be sure: Cipher bribes abominably. Frustrate his schemes preserve the liberties of the borough-turn every man out of his house who votes against enlightenment and Popkins.

Evelyn. Right! down with those who take the liberty to ad mire any liberty except our liberty! That is liberty!

Gloss. Cipher has a stake in the country-will have fifty thousand a-year: Cipher will never give a vote without considering beforehand how people of fifty thousand a-year will be affected by the motion.

Evelyn. Right; for as without law there would be no property, so to be the law for property is the only proper property of law! That is law!

Stout. Popkins is all for economy: there's a sad waste of the public money-they give the Speaker five thousand a-year, when I've a brother-in-law who takes the chair at the vestry,' and who assures me confidentially he'd consent to be Speaker for half the money.

Gloss. Enough, Mr. Stout. Mr. Evelyn has too much at stake for a leveler.

Stout. And too much sense for a bigot.

Gloss. A bigot, sir!

Stout. Yes, a bigot! [Puts his hat on, and with his hands in his pockets looks fiercely at Glossmore.]

1 Return (re tårn').—2 There (thår).—3 Sure (shår).— Pre serve'.— 'Against (a genst').— Chair.—7 Vês' try, a room for extra meetings; in the Episcopal Church, a committee which manages the worldly con cerns of the parish. Assure (ash shor'), to tell positively; declare.• Hålf.

Evelyn [laughing]. Mr. Evelyn has no politics at all. Did you ever play at battledore?

Both. Battledore !

Evelyn. Battledore-that is, a contest between two parties: both parties knock about something with singular skill: something is kept up-high-low-here-there-everywhere-nowhere! How grave are the players! how anxious the bystanders! how noisy the battledores! But, when this something falls to the ground, only fancy-it's nothing but cork and feathers !— Go and play by yourselves-I'm no hand at it.

Stout [aside]. Sad ignorance! Aristocrat!2

Gloss [aside]. Heartless principles! Parvenu!3

Stout. Then you don't go against us! I'll bring Popkins to

morrow.

Gloss. Keep yourself free till I present Cipher to you. Stout. I must go to inquire after Hopkins. The return of Popkins will be an era1 in history. [Goes out. Gloss. I must go to the club: the eyes of the country are upon Groginhole. If Cipher fail, the constitution is gone.

[Goes out.

Evelyn. All parties alike! nothing but money! Money versus Man!-Sharp, come here!—let me look at you. [Sharp rises from the desk.] You are my agent, my lawyer, my man of business. I believe you honest;-but what is honesty?where does it exist!-in what part of us?

Sharp. In the heart, I suppose, sir.

Evelyn. Mr. Sharp, it exists in the breeches pocket! Observe,' I lay this piece of yellow earth on the table-I contem'plate you both; the man there-the gold here. Now, there is many a man in those streets as honest as you are, who moves, thinks, feels, and reasons as well as we do; excellent in form, imperishable in soul; who, if his pockets were three days empty, would sell thought, reason, body, and soul too, for that

'Nothing (nůth' ing).—2 Aristocrat (år' is to krat), one who favors a form of government whose power is vested in the principal persons of a state; a haughty or overbearing person.- Pår' ve nu, an upstart; one lately come into notice. E' ra, a fixed point of time from which any number of years is begun to be counted.- Ver' sus, against • Breeches (brich' ez).- Observe (ob zerv ).— Earth (erth).

7

8

S

little coin Is that the fault of the man? No! it is the fault of mankind. God made man; behold what mankind has made a god! By the by, Sharp, send a hundred pounds to the poor bricklayer whose house was burnt' down yesterday.

Sharp. Yes, sir.

:

Evelyn. Well, man, don't stand gaping2 there have you no bowels? Go and see to it immediately. [They go out at opposite sides EDWARD BULWER LYTTON.

1.

178. THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS-SHAY."

A LOGICAL STORY.

HAVE was built in such a logical3 way

AVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss-shay,
That was

It ran a hundred years to a day,

And then, of a sudden, it-ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happen'd, without delay-
Scaring the parson into fits,

Frightening people out of their wits—
Have you ever heard of that, I say?
2. Seventeen hundred and fifty-five,
Georgius Secundus was then alive-
Snuffy old drone from the German hive!
That was the year when Lisbon town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's' army was done so brown,
Left without a scălp to its crown.

1 Burnt (bernt).— Gåp' ing.— Logical (18j' ik al), according to the rules of correct thinking and reasoning; discriminating.— Scår' ing.— • Georgius Secundus, King George II. of England, born in 1683, and died October 25, 1760.- Lisbon (liz' bon), a city of Western Europe, capital of the kingdom of Portugal, situated on the right bank of the Tagus, ncar Its mouth in the Atlantic Ocean. The earthquake here alluded to threw down a considerable portion of the city, and destroyed about 60,000 of its inhabitants.- EDWARD BRADDOCK, Major-General and Commanderin-Chief of the British forces in America, conducted an expedition against Fort Duquesne (du kan'), now Pittsburgh. On the 9th of July, 1755, while attempting to invest the fort, he fell into an ambuscade, prepared by the Indians and the French, in which he lost nearly one-half of his troops, and himself received a mortal wound.

It was on the terrible earthquake-day
That the Deacon finish'd the one-hoss-shay.
3. Now, in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always, somewhere, a weakest spot-
In hub, tire, fellõe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace-lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will-
Above or below, or within or without-
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out.
4. But the Deacon swore- -(as Deacons do,

With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou”)—
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';

It should be so built that it couldn' break daown;
-"Fur," said the Deacon, "'tis mighty plain
That the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain;
'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,

Is only jest

To make that place uz strong uz the rest.”
5. So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split, nor bent, nor broke―
That was for spokes, and floor, and sills;
He sent for lancewood, to make the thills;

The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees!
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;

The hubs from logs from the "Settler's Ellum"-
Last of its timber-they couldn't sell 'em―
Never an ax had seen their chips,

And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;

Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,

Steel of the finest, bright and blue;

Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;

Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide, Found in the pit where the tanner died. That was the way he "put her through." "There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!" 6. Do! I tell you, I rather guess

She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turn'd gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropp'd away,
Children and grandchildren-where are they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss-shay,
As fresh as on Lisbon earthquake-day!

7. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED came, and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred, increased by ten-
"Hahnsum kĕrridge" they call'd it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came;
Running as usual-much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive;
And then came fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.

8 Little of all we value here

Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;

Take it. You're welcome.-No extra charge.)
9. FIRST OF NOVEMBER-the earthquake-day.
There are traces of age in the one-hoss-shay,
A general flavor of mild decay-
But nothing local, as one may say.
There couldn't be-for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part,

That there wasn't a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whipple-tree neither less nor more,